An Overview of Deming’s Work

For those of you not familiar with W. Edwards Deming, here is a nice overview article from a newspaper. Dr. Deming passed away well over a decade ago, but it's nice to see him remembered and written about. His message is just a relevant today, we just don't have the force of his personality to help get that message across.

Ford Motor was among the earliest to bring him in for help, though executives probably expected another run-of-the-mill consultation. Instead, they got an earful from Deming. He questioned their role in what biographer Andrea Gabor, author of “The Man Who Discovered Quality” called an almost prosecutorial tone.

Deming is quoted as saying, “The hourly employees aren't responsible. Management is responsible for 85% of the quality problems in this country.”

Ford's executives may have been chastened. But they listened. By 1983, as the famous slogan read, quality was job one. The first Ford Taurus sedans were rolling off the line and soon reclaimed the lead in the U.S. auto market. Donald Petersen, Ford's chairman at the time, credited much of the turnaround to Deming's ideas.

It seems a bit ironic that Ford's slogan is credited to Demng. Is this really the case? It seems to me that the slogan might have been a misinterpretation of his teachings? Dr. Deming hated slogans and railed against them.

One of this 14 points:

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

I think John is saying that the Ford slogan might have caused minimal damage if Ford management really stood behind the “Quality is Job 1” idea and supported workers in that goal. Usually, slogans are done in the context of management NOT supporting the workers and NOT understanding the process. Signs that say things like “Quality is YOUR responsibility” (pointing at the workers) are an example of harmful slogans that demoralize people.